When it comes to women’s tennis in India, there is one player who stands head and shoulders above the rest – Sania Mirza.
Born in Mumbai, Maharashtra on November 15, 1986 to Sports journalist Imran Mirza and Naseema Mirza, her family moved to Hyderabad shortly after Sania’s birth.
Sania began playing tennis at 6 and turned professional at 17 after winning the Girls’ Doubles title at Wimbledon in 2003. She went on to win 10 singles and 13 doubles titles as a junior player. Since then, Mirza has won 6 Grand Slam titles and was ranked India’s No 1 player by the Women’s Tennis Association from 2003 to 2013.
She is a right-handed aggressive baseliner with a powerful forehand and is capable of producing winning shots even from defensive positions. She is responsible for single handedly putting Indian women’s tennis on the global map.
Time Magazine named Mirza in its ‘Heroes of Asia’ list in October 2005. The Economic Times named Mirza one of the ‘Women who Made India Proud’ in March 2010. She was appointed UN Women’s Goodwill Ambassador for South Asia on November, 25, 2013 and figured in Time Magazine’s list of ‘Most Influential People in the World’, in 2016.
Mirza married Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik in 2010 and they have a son, lzhaan Mirza-Malik. Apart from tennis, Mirza also likes cricket and swimming.
Picture Credit : Google
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